The overall goal of the Yale Research Career Development Core (RCDC) is to identify and train a cadre of junior investigators who will be future leaders in aging research, with the skills necessary to design/conduct biological, translational, and clinical studies of multifactorial geriatric health conditions. The specific aims are: (1) to promote the career development and acquisition of research skills of selected junior faculty through the provision of salary, infrastructure/technical, and other career development support; (2) to provide and facilitate priority access by junior faculty to the resource cores' expertise and services for the design, conduct, and analysis of studies addressing multifactorial geriatric health conditions; (3) to promote the development of skills for translational research (basic clinical basic; clinical > practice) that addresses our focus on multifactorial geriatric health conditions; (4) to identify and foster opportunities for interdisciplinary research; (5) to sponsor a yearly junior faculty retreat that provides intensive training and support in research career development; (6) to provide and facilitate access to educational activities in aging research locally and nationally; and (7) to enhance access to other career development resources, such as protocol development, information on funding sources, grant resource library, suitable mentors and collaborators, appropriate study populations, and geriatric instrument catalog. As reflected in these aims, there will be a greater emphasis during the next funding cycle on translational and interdisciplinary research. Dr. Thomas Gill, an NIH-funded clinical investigator with international stature for his work on functional decline and disability and with proven leadership and mentorship abilities, will lead the RCDC. For the first year, 4 candidates of outstanding promise, representing different disciplines with diverse backgrounds and interests, have been selected: Sarwat Chaudhry, MD (General Medicine), Manisha Juthani-Mehta, MD (Infectious Disease), Arthur Simen, MD, PhD (Molecular Psychiatry and Human Genetics), and Ji Li, PhD (Cardiology). Successful renewal of the Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) will allow us to build on many of the successful procedures that we have established over the past 15 years and to continue to address the scarcity of clinical, translational and basic science investigators with optimal skills and training to rigorously study the etiology, prognosis and management of multifactorial geriatric health conditions.